I've had this Mantz doily for 21 years.  The grandmother of Rich's childhood best friend made it for us when we got married.  It's been sitting on various surfaces, waiting for me to frame it before someone stained it.  Custom framing is SO expensive!  And, I'm really a cheap skate.  So, after Rich got our baby pictures done last month, I added the kids' baby pictures to the wall.  Which led me to get an estimate for framing at Joann's.  $130.  No.  Then, I bought a frame and wrapped fabric around the existing matting and black fabric around a piece of cardboard for the background and voila.  Custom framed by Heather Mantz for $25.  Why the heck did I wait 21 years to do that?  I don't know.  To top it off, I found this oval tole painting at the antique mall for $4.  I'm pretty sure it's not antique but it's adorable and matches my room.  So, Happy Birthday to me.

 The boys' baby pictures crack me up.  They look like the same kid.  I realize you can't see the picture very well but I haven't figured out how to enlarge the pics using my ipad yet.  I did figure out how to transfer from my real camera to the ipad, so I AM making a little progress.

This is May's Round Robin contribution.  Ohio Stars were the requirement.  I added the applique vines because I wasn't comfortable with all the stars and then random tulips.  I was trying to help that make a little more sense.  I think it turned out really well.  Black as a background is one of my favorite things!  It belongs to my friend Barb Sweet, who happens to be as sweet as her name.  She acted like she loved it at the meeting, so hopefully she wasn't faking it.

My latest obsession is with embroidered pillow cases!  I keep buying vintage ones because I didn't want to put in the work on my own.  But, the vintage ones are always discolored or stained.  I just bought a set for my birthday (along with plaque above) got them home and realized that they had blood stains.  Or, maybe it was chocolate.  Anyways, these ladies worked so hard on them and it makes me sad that they're stained.  I finally decided to do a set myself.  These are a gift but I'm making them in a color that I like in case I mess up or they're super awesome and decide to keep them;)

Last but not least, I'm keeping up with Quilty Stitches.  She was late on a post and then, BOOM, she posted 3.  Then, I miscounted on the last one.  You can see where I just stitched over it in white.  I was in no mood, I tell you!  No mood at all for that nonsense.  I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for years because I didn't cut the stitches out.  It's just that the last time I did that, I mutilated the Aida cloth.  Oi, I can't win.

I'm Late For a Very Important Date

I started this quilt a really long time ago!  In fact, I was collecting the fabrics while I working at Sweet Annies' which was 2 1/2 years now.  I originally bought what I needed for a Take 5 pattern.  That was when the Alice In Wonderland fabric came out.  So, maybe 3-4 years?  Then, I changed it to Turning 20 but didn't have enough different fabrics.  So, I grabbed this and that with some clocks and tea pots and whatever else I found in my stash.  Mostly of Sierra's favorite things.  Clocks, numbers, tea pots, plaid, checkers...you get the picture.

And, there it sat forever.  It just wasn't special enough.  I tried to cross-stitch a white rabbit on some linen but that was a disaster.  Then, I tried the same pattern on Aida cloth which was also a disaster, only bigger.  So, it sat some more.

 Out of nowhere this spring, I decided to embroider some of Sierra's favorite quotes from Through the Looking Glass on to the only plain fabric in the quilt.  Then, there were words but quite a bit of empty space on the fabric surrounding the words.  So I free handed some little pictures.   I wanted everything to look really organic and hand made.  That way she'd always remember that I made it for her.  The quilting is just as quirky as my little highlighter headed angel.  I just did a crazy labrynth, going straight for few inches and then turning to go in another direction for a few more inches.  It totally didn't matter if I had to back track over what I'd already done because it just made cool geometric designs.

 Mommy's special little girl being the catpillar from the story.

It's always tea time in Sierra's world...  My Mad Hatter's hat looks like it belongs on a leprechaun.  That's just me being organic, right?